Tag Archives: Slice and Bake Cookies

Coffee Toffee Shortbread Cookies

Cookies are my love language. It’s how I show my nearest and dearest that I care about them. I urge you to bake these for your loved ones. They are a decidedly adult cookie, with a very strong coffee flavour, thanks to the addition of instant coffee crystals to the dough. I used Folgers instant coffee because the coffee crystals do not dissolve in the dough and you get beautiful coffee flecks. I love to see flavour cues in my food.

I also added some chopped Skor bars to the dough. Chocolate and toffee provide a nice balance to the bitter taste of coffee. These are a simple slice and bake cookie with a very sophisticated flavour profile.

The base Shortbread recipe comes from Erin Clarkson over at Cloudy Kitchen. If you are a baker, you must follow her. Her recipes are delicious and always turn out perfectly. She is a huge proponent of baking by weight rather than volume. I would love it if this became the standard for home bakers. This is the only way to ensure consistent results. The coffee and toffee additions are my brainchild.

The addition of cornstarch to the dough contributes to these cookie’s melt in the mouth texture.

Because I’m not a minimalist, I dipped the baked cookies in bittersweet chocolate and then sprinkled the wet chocolate with some Skor bits. Fancy is how we roll around here at salt and serenity.

Click here to print recipe for Coffee Toffee Shortbread.

Smoked Almond and Toffee Shortbread

Sometimes when we’re travelling, my husband and I play this game, where we say what we would decree if we were king of the world. His proclamations usually involve cleaning up garbage at the side of the road, fixing derelict homes, zapping slow drivers off the road and shortening the length of red lights in Florida.

My wishes are a bit less lofty. I would create an ordinance that required all dentist offices to provide a pedicure while you are having your teeth cleaned. Multi-tasking at its finest. I would also command that all meals end with a cookie. I always crave a little something sweet at the end of dinner. Just a little bite, nothing too big. Cookies really are the perfect dessert. I think more restaurants should offer a cookie plate for dessert.

It’s December, so I have happily jumped onto the cookie train, and I intend to keep on rolling until you beg me to stop, or, I gain my annual holiday 5 pounds, whichever comes first.

These are a simple slice and bake cookie, studded with Skor bits and smoked almonds. For fun, I shaped them into a square log, but round cookies are good too. A tip for when you are slicing the logs; give the log a 90 degree turn after each slice, so that one side of the log does not get too squished.

I treated my cookies to a little dip in melted milk chocolate. The mellow flavour of milk chocolate is perfect with the caramel notes of the toffee and the salty smoky almonds.

While the chocolate is still wet, sprinkle on some extra crushed smoked almonds for extra crunch.

Chocolate Dipped Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

cookies and milk 2This is a tale of cookie evolution. These sweet beauties started off their short life as Cheddar Pistachio Biscuits. I had envisioned them as a little nibble to have with a glass of Prosecco over the holidays. I thought they would be similar to the Cheddar Biscuits I made a few years ago, which were met with rave reviews by my wine swilling  sipping girls weekend friends. I baked up a batch of the Cheddar Pistachio biscuits and was kind of horrified by the results. The orange cheddar clashed horribly with the green pistachios and offended my highly tuned sense of aesthetics. I could deal with the ghastly appearance if the flavours were good, but they just tasted so odd, because they were neither sweet or savoury, but rather a muddled in-between. It just confused the palate. With blessings by my tasting panel (husband and child #2), they got tossed.

Being December, I decided to wholeheartedly enmbrace the sweet route and make a pistachio shortbread cookie. And because December is all about excess, (we have January to practice our moderation skills after all!) I dipped these in melted bittersweet chocolate and rolled them in some finely chopped pistachios. The inspiration for this recipe came from a 2004 Bon Appetit recipe for hazelnut shortbread sticks. They rolled the dough into little fingers, baked and then dipped them. I sped the whole process up by turning these into slice and bake cookies.mise en placerolling logs of doughslicing cookiesdippingEach cookie is heavily studded with coarsely chopped pistachios, so that each bite delivers crunch. The final dunk into the bittersweet chocolate provides a perfect balance for the richness of these sweet and buttery cookies. cookies 625 sq

Click here to print the recipe for Chocolate Dipped Pistachio Shortbread.

cooling on rack 625 sq